The nose(s) know

Steve's dad passed away last night. It's going to be difficult for a while.

I'm currently reading AN OLD BETRAYAL by Charles Finch. This is 7th of 7 in series featuring Charles Lenox, a gentleman sleuth, in 1860s London. Here is a description:

On a spring morning in London, 1875, Charles Lenox agrees to take time away from his busy schedule as a Member of Parliament to meet an old protégé’s client at Charing Cross.  But when their cryptic encounter seems to lead, days later, to the murder of an innocuous country squire, this fast favor draws Lenox inexorably back into his old profession. Soon he realizes that, far from concluding the murderer’s business, this body is only the first step in a cruel plan, many years in the plotting.  Where will he strike next?  The answer, Lenox learns with slowly dawning horror, may be at the very heart of England’s monarchy.

It was published November 2013 and has 304 pages.

On Kindle, I'm reading DARK ENTRY by M J Trow. This is 1st of 5 in series featuring Kit (Christopher) Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright in his youth, beginning in 1583 Cambridge, England. Here is a description:

Cambridge, 1583. About to graduate from Corpus Christi, the young Christopher Marlowe spends his days studying and his nights carousing with old friends. But when one of them is discovered lying dead in his King’s College room, mouth open in a silent scream, Marlowe refuses to accept the official verdict of suicide. Calling on the help of his mentor, Sir Roger Manwood, Justice of the Peace, and the queen’s magus, Dr John Dee, a poison expert, Marlowe sets out to prove that his friend was murdered.

It was published in 2011 and has 224 pages. This is a digital loan from the library. 

In the past couple days, I've also read on Kindle the first two of the Divergent trilogy, DIVERGENT and INSURGENT by Veronica Roth. This is another young adult dystopian trilogy in the vein of THE HUNGER GAMES. It is so far very well done. They've made the first book into a movie that will come out in 2014.  Here are descriptions of the two books:

DIVERGENT: 

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself. During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

It was published in 2011 and has 496 pages. 

INSURGENT:

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love. Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Published in 2012, it has 544 pages. 

Much love,
PK the Bookeemonster